February 25, 2010 issue

The Chronicle T h e i n d e p e n d e n t d a i ly at D u k e U n i v e r s i t y

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2010

Recession’s effect on fin. aid unclear

ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTH YEAR, Issue 103

www.dukechronicle.com

duke student gov’t

Before Senior Night

Dining fee may rise by $100

by Sabrina Rubakovic The Chronicle

Students who apply to Duke must decide whether to check a box on their applications indicating whether they intend to apply for financial aid.

The past three years have seen the University enact a major overhaul of financial aid policies in December 2007 and cope with the impact of a national recession in the fall of 2008. Yet, the percentage of applicants checking that box has admissions remained relatively part 2 of 2 steady. Since 2003, this number has fluctuated between 62 and 66 percent, according to data provided by the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, catching administrators by surprise.

“It surprised me last year and it surprised me this year. I would have suspected that the percentage would have increased,” said Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Christoph Guttentag.

Although it remains unclear why the percentage of applicants expressing an intent to apply for aid has remained so consistent, Guttentag said one possible explanation is the discrepancy between

Price hike would cut $2.2M deficit in half

by Matthew Chase THE CHRONICLE

eugene wang/The Chronicle

Men’s head basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski speaks to students in an open team meeting at the practice facility Wednesday night. In his talk, Krzyzewski said he will miss the talent of the currents seniors.

To eliminate nearly $1.1 million of its current deficit, Dining Services may increase its dining plan contract fee by about $100 for Fall 2010, Duke Student Government President Awa Nur announced Wednesday.

Currently, undergraduates pay a $19.50 dining contract fee each semester. But Nur, a senior, said Vice President for Campus Services Kemel Dawkins and Director of Dining Services Jim Wulforst have presented a plan to implement the one-time $100 fee to make up for the deficit.

The plan is not finalized, as Executive Vice President Tallman Trask will review the proposal later this week, Nur said after the meeting.

The decision comes after year-long discussions with administrators during which Nur and other student representatives worked to voice student interests, cut costs

See financial aid on page 3

See dsg on page 5

Profs, admins look to digital textbooks to slow rising prices

Do try this at home

by Rachel Sussman THE CHRONICLE

Indu ramesh/The Chronicle

A staff member of the Duke Educational Leaders in Sexual Health leads the Sex Toys Workshop Wednesday night. The event, sponsored by the Healthy Devils Peer Educators, was designed to expose students to sex toys and non-sex intimacy options.

As education goes digital, textbooks may find a home online.

The physics department and university libraries at North Carolina State University are for the first time offering online textbooks free to the 1,300 students taking introductory-level physics this semester. The plan was implemented after Michael Paesler, head of the NCSU physics department, approached the university’s library about using electronic textbooks to reduce the cost of books for students. The initiative is estimated to save students a total of $250,000.

“Students are paying an exorbitant amount of money for textbooks,” Paesler said. “I feel that an electronic text is something students would be comfortable with.”

N.C. State Libraries paid about $1,500 to purchase the See textbooks on page 4

ONTHERECORD

“I am battling against the myth of African dance.” ­—Zimbabwean dancer Nora Chipaumire. See story RECESS 4

Men’s Basketball: Vacation?

Conference USA opponent Tulsa gives Duke a break from ACC play, PAGE 7

“Blood Done Sign My Name” comes to the screen, RECESS 5

2 | THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2010 the chronicle

worldandnation

TODAY:

3927

FRIDAY:

4828

Dubai police name 26 suspects in al-Mabhouh murder

Jobs plan clears Senate

CEO says Toyota will not ‘run away’ from problems

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Senate approved a $15 billion jobs plan Wednesday that gives companies a temporary tax break for hiring those who have been unemployed for at least 60 days.

The measure, passed 70-28, now goes to the House where lawmakers plan to make some changes to it, said Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y. “Some adjustments have to be made,” he said. “There’s nothing that we can’t work out.” The House approved a $150 billion jobs plan in December.

Rangel declined to say what alterations House Democratic leaders will push for, saying, “If I told you, it would magnify what the changes are and we don’t want to do that.” Changes to the bill by the House would require another Senate vote before it could be sent to President Barack Obama to be signed into law.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Toyota Motor Corp.’s president Wednesday told a U.S. congressional panel “we never run away from our problems,” as lawmakers examine record recalls by the world’s largest automaker.

Akio Toyoda’s remarks before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee came in his first appearance before U.S. lawmakers following recalls of about 8 million cars and trucks worldwide for defects that may cause sudden acceleration.

Toyota is struggling to repair a reputation damaged by the recalls and questions about how the company responded to consumer complaints. Committee Chairman Edolphus Towns opened the hearing saying the automaker was “more concerned with profit than with customer safety.” Toyoda pledged to change the company’s approach to safety.

“

Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that?

Nobody.

— Benjamin Franklin

TODAY IN HISTORY

”

1952: Sixth Winter Olympic games close at Oslo, Norway.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Dubai police are seeking the arrest of 15 additional suspects in the murder of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in the emirate last month, raising the number of wanted people to at least 26, including six women.

Fourteen of the suspects used credit cards issued by Metabank in the United States to book hotel rooms and pay for air travel, according to a police statement Wednesday. Two credit cards issued by Gibraltar-based IDT Finance, one by Germany’s DZ Bank and one by Nationwide Building Society in Britain, were also used, police said.

“The new list of suspects includes people who offered prior logistical support and preparations to facilitate the crime and others who played a central role,” police said.“Dubai Police investigators are not ruling out the possibility of involvement of

other people in the murder.” Police have accused Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad, of sending a hit squad using forged European passports to murder al-Mabhouh.

On Feb. 15, Police released the names and photographs of 11 suspects they say took part in al-Mabhouh’s murder in a hotel, and a day later issued international arrest warrants. Two Palestinians were detained in connection with the killing. The murder case turned into a diplomatic controversy as Britain and Ireland called in Israel’s ambassadors to discuss how the suspects were traveling on fraudulent passports.

Dubai Police Chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim told the National newspaper, which is owned by the Abu Dhabi government, that it’s “99 percent, if not 100 percent that Mossad is standing behind the murder” Feb. 18.

Abu Dhabi and Dubai are the two largest sheikhdoms in the United Arab Emirates.

kieran timberlake architects/bloomberg news

The new U.S. embassy in London will be wrapped in a clear plastic material, ETFE fabric, that diffuses daylight into the building while shading it from direct sunlight. U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom Louis Susman announced the selection of the design Tuesday. The estimated $500 million glass cube is expected to be unveiled in 2013 on the south bank of the Thames.

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the chronicle

financial aid from page 1 the number of people indicating interest in aid and the number who actually apply. It may be possible that the percentage of applicants in each class applying for aid has actually increased over the years, he said.

Despite requests for further data on the number of applicants who do apply for need-based aid and the respective financial need of those applicants, Nerissa Rivera, a financial management analyst at the Office of Undergraduate Financial Aid Office, said she was not authorized to release that information.

Over the past few years the total number of undergraduate need-based aid recipients has ranged from 2,484 in 2003-2004 to 2,605 students last year, according to data provided by Rivera. Duke’s undergraduate student body usually numbers around 6,500.

The University has adopted a strategy of encouraging students to apply for aid regardless of their perceived eligibility, Guttentag noted.

“We’ve always told people that there’s no harm to applying for financial aid and that it can only be beneficial,” Guttentag said. “That message has come across.”

Provost Peter Lange said the economic situation may have resulted in an increase in financial need rather than an increase in the number of people applying for aid.

Alison Rabil, assistant vice provost and director of Financial Aid, confirmed Lange’s sentiment, noting that the Class of 2013 has experienced a steep increase in need, probably due to the economic crisis. She added that

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2010 | 3

there has also been a steady increase in financial need every year. “[Financial need] just keeps going up. We have more students who are on aid and those students need more than they needed before,” she said.

Rabil also said the Class of 2013 received more grant money than in past years, and that the amount of the average grant is going up. Total University grant resources have increased steadily from $42.1 million in 2003-2004 to $65.1 million last school year, according to data provided by Rivera.

Despite administrative expectations, students like Matt Ordway, an incoming freshman from Stamford, Conn. who was accepted early decision, said the economic downturn and new financial aid policies were not a deciding factor in applying for aid.

“I was going to apply either way, as there is no reason to not try and get financial aid—you never know what will happen,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Lange noted that new financial aid policies are not likely to create a significant change in the number of financial aid applicants.

For accepted early decision applicant Ryan Kane of Ocala, Fla., however, Duke’s new aid policies were an important factor in his decision to apply for aid.

“I applied [for aid] knowing that I would only be able to attend Duke if the financial aid policies that were in the literature were actually true...

I was motivated by the fact that Duke basically promised that if I got in I would be able to afford attending one of the top colleges in the world,” he wrote in an e-mail. “It was pretty cool finding out that Duke actually keeps that promise.”

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textbooks from page 1 site license for the textbook, published by Physics Curriculum and Instruction, said Greg Raschke, associate director for collections and scholarly communication at N.C. State.

Raschke, who manages the physics project for the library, said the introductory physics course presented a good opportunity to try electronic textbooks because so many students use the same book for the course.

Deborah Jakubs, Duke’s University librarian and vice provost for library affairs, said Duke Libraries is monitoring the program at N.C. State, but “hasn’t come up with a specific proposal for investing at this point.”

She noted that she understands that textbooks are a “significant investment” for students.

At least one professor at Duke is already using electronic textbooks. Robert Brown, visiting professor of physics, has been writing his own textbooks since the early 1980s and now provides them for free to the general public on his personal Web site. The difference between Brown’s

book and the one NCSU is using is that Brown does not make money. He has written textbooks for two introductory physics courses as well as for a graduate level electrodynamics course.

He knows that physics students beyond Duke use his online books. Brown said he has received calls from students asking for clarifications on diagrams in the book and his Web site gets about 1 million hits a month.

“College textbooks have gone insanely out of range in their price,” Brown said. “Physics textbooks typically cost between $130 to $160. By providing them online for free, I help students out.”

Brown said he believes that the publishing market is responsible for the high costs of textbooks. Publishers create new editions of textbooks every two to three years, rendering used books less useful for students, he said.

“Physics textbook publishers are attempting to shut off the used book market.” Brown said. “It’s a scam. I feel like a scam-buster.”

Steve Nowicki, dean and vice provost of undergraduate education, said he is also concerned about the rising costs

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of textbooks at Duke. But he said Duke’s financial situation makes it unlikely that the University would adopt a program like N.C. State’s soon.

Nowicki said textbook authors and publishers, rather than universities, should be the ones working to make textbooks cheaper.

“Universities can’t afford to take up the slack,” he said.

“It will just be a pass of the cost, raising tuition more for students.”

Brown said electronic textbooks offer several benefits over their print counterparts. Authors make as much or more money as they would with print publishing, but students and libraries buy the books for a fraction of the cost, he said. He added that students can download the latest editions of online textbooks once they have purchased the initial copy.

In addition, some students like sophomore Andrew Bentley said they were concerned that it would be difficult to read and take notes in online textbooks.

“If you’ve ever tried to read a computer screen for a long period of time, it’s awful,” he said.

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the chronicle

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2010 | 5

dsg from page 1 and improve food service, Nur said in her address.

“We are still fighting, but we are kind of tired of arguing back against crazy ideas and crazy solutions for a problem that has existed for four years, and I don’t understand how Dining didn’t anticipate it,” Nur said.

For the last few years, Dining has faced a $2.2 million deficit that accrued after it increased workers’ salaries in 2005 and switched to Bon Appétit Management Company in 2007. This year, Dining was able to reduce the deficit through administrative and “inside” changes, including reducing the number of workers, Nur said.

Nur said she and Chief of Staff Mike Lefevre, a junior, suggested that Dining re-evaluate all of its vendors and reconsider those that are not turning a profit. She added that there is too much competition between Bon Appétit—which runs eateries like the Marketplace and the Great Hall—and third parties like The Loop Pizza Grill and Merchants on Points vendors.

“Dining should have been treated like a business this whole time by the University but it hasn’t,” Nur said. “I am sorry to say that it has been very poorly mismanaged.”

After the meeting, Nur said her discussions with administrators were in vain because of the decision to raise the fee.

“I think they wasted their time,” she said. “The question shouldn’t have been, ‘Who is going to pay this $2.2 million?’ It should have been, ‘How are we going to restructure Dining?’”

In other business: Senators passed a resolution supporting the creation of a trial that would potentially allow freshmen to spend their unused Marketplace breakfast swipes on lunch at Chickfil-A or Subway.

Athletics and Campus Services Senator Douglas Hanna, who proposed the resolution, said Wulforst was open to

such a trial, but he might limit it to a certain percentage of freshmen. Hanna, a freshman and Chronicle staff member, added that the trial would most likely take place after spring break.

“Jim’s verbage was hesitant but enthusiastic,” Hanna said. “He said something to the extent of, with student support, he felt it would be very feasible.”

Vice President for Student Affairs Spencer Eldred, a senior, presented a resolution requesting a formal meeting with Vice President of Student Affairs Larry Moneta concerning the change in move-out date for West Campus residents to May 10 from May 17 after students had signed housing contracts.

The resolution, which the Senate passed, outlines some of DSG’s concerns with Moneta, including RLHS’s ability to “change the housing license at any moment without notification or rationale.”

Visit our website for more on the dining deficit.

Celebrating THE Sanford ScHool of PublIc PolIcy

Inaugural Series

Peter Bergen in Kabul, Afghanistan larsa al-omaishi/The Chronicle

At DSG’s meeting Wednesday night, Chief of Staff Mike Lefevre, a junior, details the cause of the $2.2 million dining deficit after President Awa Nur announced that the dining plan contract fee may rise by $100 for Fall 2010.

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volume 12 issue 21 february 25, 2010

THE SADDEST ISSUE EVER

ZIMBABWEAN EXILES

Nora Chipaumire & Thomas Mapfumo take the turmoil of their home and turn it into art.

PAGE 4

photo illustration by maddie lieberberg/The chronicle

in blood

Tim Tyson’s history of Oxford, N.C. goes to the screen

page 5

two bodies

A senior seeks distinction with the two-person play

page 6

xiu xiu

Jamie Stewart talks about his new album, Durham

page 3

recess

Page 2

theSANDBOX. Last Tuesday morning, I was awoken by my persistent uncontrollable cough (bronchitis?), eyes crusted with puss (pink eye?), sinuses feeling like crap (definite infection) in my near-freezing, ant-infested room of my mice-infested house.

I had a statistics midterm in the morning and enough work to have me sitting groggyeyed in VDH drinking terrible coffee until 2 or 3 a.m. Then I returned to my near-freezing, ant-infested room of my mice-infested house where I chewed as much Ricola as I could, took a double-dose of Tylenol PM, took a shot of scotch and hoped this concoction would allow me the luxury of four or five hours of sleep before yet another long day. This is my life.

Funny thing happened this Tuesday, though. I woke up, and instead of the usual raw silence of winter with the occasional raspy acceleration or squeaky deceleration of a ’97 Buick LaSalle, I heard something that I hadn’t heard since—well, for a long time. Birds were chirping. Chirping. I went to my front porch where I was greeted by a warm sun. I sauntered

to my backyard where, I kid you not, a golden puppy (my friend’s most recent extravagant purchase) was playfully running through the grass, no longer morbidly yellow, but now with a tint of green. It was spring.

I don’t know what the calendar has marked for spring, and I really don’t care all that much ’cause spring is here. Now, I’m not the biggest fan of spring. I enjoy wallowing in self-pity amid the falling leaves of autumn and taking myself way too seriously. But dammit, spring is nice!

Spring is a case of Busch Light and Third Eye Blind on main quad. Spring is a six-pack of Fat Tire and Nick Drake in the gardens.

Spring is falling in love with every other girl that you meet. Spring is a chance for forgiving old friends. Spring is lax games, the Al Buehler trail and happy hour at the WaDuke.

She may not love you! You may have had a lonely Valentine’s Day! You may have spent it watching The Last Kiss and listening to Ray LaMontagne on repeat, but shed your last tear. It’s spring!

—Michael Woodsmall

[recesseditors] in season Andrew Hibbard.......................................................................October Sky on VHS Eugene Wang..............................................................august osage rush burroughs Charlie McSpadden........................................................................................feb club Kevin Lincoln...........................................500 days of... STOP THE REFERENCES Claire Finch................................................................january jones vs. miranda july John Wall.........................................................t-shirts written in blood defy seasons Maddie Lieberberg..................................the september issue, unrated and uncut Will Robinson..........................................................Golden Year of Lame Duckness

February 25, 2010

excessive compulsive

What word makes everything instantly worse? It starts with a “W” and ryhmes with winter. That’s right, winter. I hate this season.

I came to Duke to escape this icy wench, but she’s even colder and wetter here.

Let’s start with the recent weather. Some people say the rain is God’s tears. Well God, you better have a kidney stone because these little showers you’ve gifted us feel like the cold, stale weepings of a bitter, old bastard.

And if there’s one thing I hate more than rain, it’s wind. At least with rain you can collect some of it and, in an act of defiance, violently dump it out. What can I do with wind?

Angrily fill up a paper bag and pop it? “Die wind!” I await your warm embrace, Satan.

What does this cold winter hell mean for me? I’m as sick, fragile and delusional as a pope. My throat hurts so badly right now it feels like I’ve been trying to deep throat a dildo wrapped in barbed wire.

Some would say being sick isn’t always bad. In my house, you got to stay home, locked in the basement eating only bread and water—Mom’s home remedy. “Soup?

That’s just a suburban myth.” When I’m sick, I like to spoon with the couch and my dear old friend, the tube. But since the Olympics started, there isn’t a single good thing on cable. (Note: my HBO subscription was recently cancelled. Yay poverty!)

It would be too easy to say the Winter Olympics blow, but it’s more like NBC is strangling them. I love the Winter Olympics like I love a snow day, but NBC is doing what my neighbor used to do to me on snow days: take me outside and stuff snow in my face, mouth and down my jacket until I run home.

It made the joy of playing in the snow a nightmare. Commericals every other minute, curling or figure skating twice an hour and then full coverage of cross-country skiing? Can we just add bobsled, skeleton, luge, downhill ski-

ing and hockey to the Winter X Games?

There’s no speed skating either. People watch this sport for the same reason they watch NASCAR—the crashes. Speed skating is lucky Stephen Colbert bailed it out. He’s emerged as a true hero at these Olympics. He’s like my big brother who would come out, grab the neighbor off me, urinate in the snow and then stuff yellow snow in the bully’s face, mouth and down his jacket. Talk about a true American. DEFEAT THE WORLD! Recently on his show, Colbert interviewed NBC’s Olympic talking head Bob Costas, who said, “I don’t care that much who wins. I just want good, interesting stories.” Is that why I’m watching you tell some sob story about a sick sled dog instead of Ovechkin vs. Crobsy!

The Iditarod isn’t part of the Olympics, BOB. Be more American, BOB. And the Oscars only make the winter worse. They make me grouchy… cricket?

But seriously, they drive me Wilde... OK, I’m done. The winter is when I want to be inside watching a movie, but no one wants to put out a movie right before the Oscars.

I tried to go to a movie the other night and you know what was out? Nuthin’.

The only one semi-worth seeing right now is Shutter Island, but spoiler alert: Jack dies. Shutter Island starts sinking, and Jack tries to swim away but the water is too cold.

Eventually, he comes across a door with Kate Winslet on it. If he got on the door, it would tip her off, so he just freezes to the side of it like an icicle and eventually chips off, sinking to an icy wintry grave. That’s exactly how Jack felt then, and that’s how he feels now.

Jack want Spring Break. Jack want it now, BOB. Jack Wilkinson is a Trinity senior. His column runs every other Thursday.

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February 25, 2010

Page 3

Xiu Xiu’s Stewart apologizes to Durham Durham transplant Jamie Stewart released his seventh studio album under the Xiu Xiu name, Dear God, I Hate Myself, Tuesday. The oddly knowledgeable Jonathan Wall caught up with the former Bay Area denizen before the album’s release to talk about his turbulent 2009 with supergroup Former Ghosts, a band shake-up that saw the entry of Duke Law student Angela Seo and his feelings toward his adopted home.

So are you a big Durham fan yet? I met you about a year ago and you weren’t such a big Durham fan then.

My uncertainties, shall we say, remain.

I saw your post on the blog about the gay pride parade.

That has to be a glimmer.

Yeah, that definitely was.

Have there been any other high points?

I found a bar that I like. I don’t know if that’s a high point or a low point, though.

Which bar is it?

Monday through Wednesday nights after 12:30 a.m., I like Whiskey a lot. It’s within walking distance from my house.

That makes a big difference with bars.

I wish I didn’t need to go there as often as I do. At least I have somewhere to go—I moved to a better part of town, before I was in the woods. It’s not as isolated as I was before.

Do you come to Duke’s campus much?

Actually, I used to go for walks around the trail of the campus, the one that’s closer to Ninth Street, but the cops told me that I couldn’t come there anymore because I kept yelling obscenities at all the army recruiters on campus. I was actually worried I was going to get arrested; they held me for about 40 minutes.

So now I don’t go there at all because I’m not allowed.

It feels to me like the new album is really cohesive, more so than other Xiu Xiu albums.

It’s funny you should mention that, because on all the records before, I didn’t really put any thought into what kinds of songs should be on the record.

And this year, for the first time, I had the idea of—I guess this would have been inspired by the latest Morrissey record, which was essentially a series of, like, 12 songs, and a record that is about half-an-hour long. You could listen to it once, it goes by really fast—and it’s just beating you the entire time, without letting up at all, with a backbeat, essentially. And I really really loved that about that Morrissey record.

And not that this record sounds anything like that at all, we just tried to pace it similarly to that record. That’s maybe where any sense of cohesion comes from.

With the album there’s the deluxe version—the shirts with “xiu xiu for life” written in band members’ blood. And you’ve included the small pieces of plant matter with your limited-release series of ambient albums. Does that represent an added importance to physical releases?

Essentially, it’s another art project, more than anything else. That’s the main motivation for doing it. And then, also, we’ve been around for eight years or something, and i guess some people have followed the band for a very long time, and I feel very fortunate that they’ve been keeping a close eye on what we’re up to. So in addition to doing another art project, it’s an attempt to make something a little more interesting for people who have followed the band closely. I mean, probably no one would even be aware we were making that kind of stuff unless you knew a lot about the band,

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dear god, i hate myself

xiu xiu kill rock stars

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Special to The Chronicle

Jamie Stewart (left) has become a stalwart of independent music with his transgressive work under the Xiu Xiu moniker. His new album was released Tuesday. so it’s kind of for them.

Along with the ambient discs, a lot of other stuff for you happened in 2009: a few solo tours; Former Ghosts, Caralee McElroy leaving Xiu Xiu after five years. Did it seem like a busy year to you?

I did not expect it to be, because Xiu Xiu didn’t tour at all in 2009, and we didn’t have a record out in 2009. So I thought, you know, I’ll do a couple solo tours, I’ll tour with Freddy in Former Ghosts and work on a new record. It’ll be a pretty

mellow year. But man, I haven’t worked so hard in my life. I don’t know how this happened, but oh my God, this year has been really intense that way.

Have you done many solo shows? I saw you in Chapel Hill at the Nightlight in December.

Was that a one-time thing?

Yeah, that was a one-off thing. Other solo shows I’ve done have been more doing folk versions of Xiu Xiu songs.

See xiu xiu on page 7

Dear God, I Hate Myself is not an album for everyone. Xiu Xiu seems almost deliberately alienating, making music that is disquieting and claustrophobic. The lyrics wander awkwardly from the nonsensical to the perverse.

The angst-filled title polarizes, yet the album represents an entire spectrum of emotions, from joy to dark introspection. Sometimes, this results in an incomprehensible and confusing work.

But at other moments, Dear God, I Hate Myself delights with tongue-in-cheek humor and unabashed, unbridled innovation.

Dear God defies typical genre classifications, shuffling from cheery synthpop to experimental, glitchy electronica. The absurd “Chocolate Makes You Happy” hearkens back to new wave; the delicate piano of “The Fabrizio Palumbo Retaliation” clashes against drum loops and digitized noises. Most indicative of the wickedly mischievous humor of the band is the bizarre folk song “Cumberland Gap,” replete with traditional banjo.

Jamie Stewart’s breathy, ethereal voice tenuously holds these diverse tracks together. In some songs, such as opener “Gray Death” and the title track, he is a perfect fit for the unique blend of organic instrumentation and harsh electronics.

In others, the juxtaposition of vocals and music is jarring, as on the indescribably strange “Hyunhye’s Theme” or the pondering “Falkland Rd.” There is a risk that listeners will write this music off as entirely inaccessible, yet I have a sneaking suspicion the band takes this in stride.

Although Dear God, I Hate Myself is unlikely to win new converts, Xiu Xiu remains committed to its eclectic style, perhaps at the expense of a wider audience.

—Jeff Shi

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photos special to The Chronicle

Page 4

Through dance, Zimbabwean self-exile Nora Chipaumire addresses notions of Africa

by Tina Siadak

“I

THE CHRONICLE

am battling against the myth of African dance.”

So said Zimbabwean dancer Nora Chipaumire, who has spent her career redefining her idea of self and the world’s concept of a single, monolithic Africa through melding ancient traditions of dance with contemporary music and motion.

Her latest project Lions Will Roar, Swans Will Fly, Angels Will Wrestle Heaven, Rains Will Break: Gukurahundi! challenges the contrived conceptions of Africa, seeking to explore the authentic depths of the continent’s greatest cities.

“There is always bad press about Africa,” Chipaumire said of her reasons for creating the piece. “There are so many misperceptions.

It is seen as one country.”

Zimbabwe has been in and out of the in-

February 25, 2010

ternational press for years, taking the back burner whenever events in the Middle East become particularly heated, Chipaumire said. She believes that being out from under the world’s distant scrutiny may be good for the country, but just because Zimbabwe is off of the front page doesn’t mean its problems are solved. The recent global economic crisis provided a compelling moment for Chipaumire to express the ideas presented through Gukurahundi!

“The economy was deteriorating in Zimbabwe,” she said. “It created an interesting juxtaposition when the economy collapsed in the United States.”

Gukurahundi! is a collaboration between Chipaumire and Zimbabwean musical greats Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited.

They are bringing the performance to Duke this weekend, as well as serving as artists-inresidence for the week. Chipaumire, Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited discussed their respective art in an African and African-American Studies class Tuesday.

In the class, Chipaumire danced playfully with her partner Souleymane Badolo while Mapfumo and his band jammed in the background.

“This is authentic art. A lot of people outside of Africa are exposed to the ‘Tarzan’ Africa,” Chipaumire told the class after her dance. “We make authentic art. It is definitely not for tourist consumption. It’s done because we live it. It’s who we are, and therefore it is authentic.”

Along with confronting misconceptions of Africa, Chipaumire attempts to tackle the issue of dislocation through her dance. Living out-

side of Zimbabwe and performing for forei audiences, Chipaumire strives to represent t separation of worlds.

“I’m interested in how I can talk about be Zimbabwean out of Zimbabwe,” Chipaumire plained. “What does that dislocation look like? I looking for a visual language for that dislocatio Chipaumire has been dancing her wh life, but professionally, she stumbled up dance almost by accident. Living in the Unit States, she decided to take a modern dan class at a community college to release ener “I was intrigued by the female pione of American modern dance and interest in a female power in art,” Chipaumire sa “I am, at the bottom-line, fascinated by wh women do.”

Despite the political and social underton of her art, Chipaumire’s work ultimately com from a very personal place.

“I am a modern person, I live everywher she explained. “I’m not representing Zim bwe, I’m representing me, and that’s a v contemporary idea.”

Even when her audiences are far remov from the cultural context of Zimbabwe, C paumire is confident the complex design a complete picture of her performance comm nicates with the viewer.

“I just want to show an authentic and ho est me in the now,” Chipaumire said. “Rega less of cultural differences, people can rel to honesty.”

Nora Chipaumire will perform at 8 p.m. Friday a Saturday at Reynolds Industries Theater. General mission tickets are $22 or $28, student tickets are $5

sights and sounds from Thomas Mapfumo mines politics and art of his birthplace for charged musical innovation

by Ryan Brown

W

THE CHRONICLE

hen Zimbabwean Thomas Mapfumo started making music nearly half a century ago, the world looked a little different.

Zimbabwe was the white-ruled nation of Rhodesia, Robert Mugabe was a freedom fighter and the country’s currency came in denominations smaller than $5 billion. But four decades later and a continent away, some things haven’t changed.

“Most of our songs have always been about freedom,” Mapfumo said. “And it’s no longer for Zimbabwe only, it’s for the whole world.... It’s the duty of every musician to see that they’re actually singing for peace.”

Of course, all of that is easier said than done when you come from a country like Zimbabwe, where the political landscape is scarred with repression. When Mapfumo was growing up in a crowded township outside of Salisbury (now Harare), listening to the crooning of Elvis Presley and Otis Redding on his family’s lone radio, the country around him was falling apart. Year after year, protests against the brutal white regime rocked the city, and by the time Mapfumo was in his mid-20s, Rhodesia stood on the brink of revolution.

It was at this critical moment that he found his footing as a musician. In the early 1970s, Mapfumo and his band the Blacks Unlimited solidified an afro-pop style that they called “chimeranga”—the Shona word for struggle. His rich, polyrhythmic tunes

drew on both traditional southern African melodies and instruments as well as the western rock and soul music that he had grown up loving. But the music also had a uniquely Zimbabwean flare as a critique of the Ian Smith government, and it wasn’t long before one of Mapfumo’s songs landed him in jail. But for the musician, this was only a confirmation that he was doing something right.

“Chimeranga music is meant to be the voice of the voiceless,” he said. “It’s for people who can’t speak for themselves. The music is there to speak for them.”

Director of Duke Performances Aaron Greenwald is quick to point out, though, that Mapfumo’s songs are more than just an instrument of social change.

“He’s managed to make music that’s both political and that people want to dance to,” he said. “You’ll want to move to this music.”

To that end, Greenwald scheduled Mapfumo to play in the Duke Coffeehouse, which he calls the campus’ best venue for dancing. He characterized the concert this evening as “an incredible musician in a really small room” and added that it will give the Duke and Durham communities a unique opportunity to experience a musician who usually plays for much larger audiences.

Mapfumo also expects the experience to be a good one for the band.

“We love to see people dancing to our music,” he said.

That trend will continue in a different way Friday and Saturday as Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited provide backing music for dancer Nora Chipaumire, who will present a piece based on Zimbabwean politics in Reynolds Theater.

Then Mapfumo will head home to Oregon, where he has lived with his family since being forced out of Zimbabwe a decade ago.

But it won’t be long before he is back out

on tour again this summer, hitting venues across the U.S., Europe and Canada.

“We just want to explain to all these people who we are, where we’re coming from and where we’re going,” he said.

Thomas Mapfumo & the Blacks Unlimited will perform tonight at the Duke Coffeehouse at 8 and 10:30 p.m. Tickets are $15 general admission and $5 for students.

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Page 5

blood done sign my name

by Charlie McSpadden the chronicle

Over the past two decades, Tim Tyson has watched his freshman year civil rights paper evolve into a major motion picture.

The narrative roots of Blood Done Sign My Name, a 2004 book whose film adaptation opened Friday, can be traced back to conversations that took place at the family dinner table when Tyson was a young boy. Tyson, a senior research scholar at the Center for Documentary Studies and visiting professor of American christianity and southern culture at the Divinity School, moved to Oxford, N.C. in 1970 when his father Vernon became the new preacher of the town’s Methodist church.

The white Vernon surprised the deeply segregated town, preaching colorblind love and acceptance. After the murder of black Vietnam War veteran Henry Marrow and the prejudiced acquittal of the three white perpetrators, a grassroots civil rights movement took the town by storm, unfolding before the then 11-year old Tyson’s eyes.

Tyson first tackled the Marrow story in an assignment while attending the Univeristy of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1982. He built upon his original research eight years later in his master’s thesis while working toward a Ph.D at Duke.

“Though it adhered to all the professional norms and displayed a young, fumbling but perhaps promising historian at work, it also was a species of lie,” Tyson said. “You could read the whole thing and not know that I lived there and knew a lot of these people.”

Understanding his own lack of objectivity, Tyson “wisely special to The Chronicle

moved to other subjects” and set his master’s thesis aside. While teaching at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1994 to 2004, Tyson advanced to the forefront of African-American studies, winning numerous national teaching awards. But as he was working on another history book in 2001, Tyson could not suppress his personal memoir any longer.

“This story just came spitting out of me,” Tyson said.

“There was a kind of convulsive quality to it.”

Tyson wrote about 115 pages in the first month, shedding his previous, more “professional” historian tone for the “new and different” first-person. The Crown Publishing Group pub-

Stuart, who penned the screenplays for Die Hard and The Fugitive, was first recommended the book by close friend and Board of Trustees member Robert Steel, Trinity ’73. Steel knew Stuart was looking for a “more intimate story” to be his first feature in a decade, and Stuart found the narrative’s unique placement within the civil rights movement especially refreshing.

“There was a different tone to it: King was dead, Malcolm X was dead,” Stuart said. “A lot of African-Americans came back from Vietnam, where they had fought hand in hand with whites, [as] second-class citizens.”

But when Stuart contacted

“This story just came spitting out of me.... There was a kind of convulsive quality to it.”

— Tim Tyson, Duke professor and author lished the memoir in May of 2004 to great critical acclaim, and Tyson returned to Durham that year as a John Hope Franklin Senior Fellow at the National Humanities Center.

After yet another transformation, this time featuring a play adaptation by writer-actor Mike Wiley, the story seemed destined to reach the film medium. And when writer-director Jeb Stuart, also a North Carolina native with a preacher father, came across Tyson’s memoir, he was immediately drawn to it.

“It was a very North Carolinian story, which appealed to me,” Stuart said. “Tim’s book had a terrific voice to it.”

Tyson about making the film, the historian was wary. A Hollywood producer had approached Tyson during his Duke days in the mid-’90s, inquiring for the rights to Tyson’s dissertation on local NAACP branch president Robert F. Williams. When the producer asked for Tyson to create a more heroic white figure, Tyson backed out.

In a recent Wall Street Journal guest blog essay titled “Why Historians Hate Hollywood,” Tyson related his general mistrust of the way the film industry usually depicts civil rights movements.

“In typical Hollywood movies, we get very clearly marked villains and a very uncompli-

caroline rodriguez/The Chronicle

ign this

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February 25, 2010

cated white South,” Tyson said.

Unlike the many agents of bankable Hollywood stars who wanted Tyson to make the script more conventional, Stuart respected the original vision.

“Jeb and I saw eye to eye,” Tyson said.

Stuart and his team began location scouting in 2008, eventually settling on the small town of Shelby, N.C., for the bulk of the filming. Oxford, Stuart recalled, was unable to accommodate the film’s sizeable cast and crew, particularly during the march and protest scenes.

“It felt a little like Lawrence of Arabia,” Stuart said.

Tyson stayed on set for nearly every day of the film’s creation, watching childhood memories re-created before his eyes. Tyson’s father, portrayed in the film by NYPD Blue vet Rick Schroder, visited the set and was profoundly affected by this surreal experience.

“I looked over and my father was weeping,” Tyson said.

“You’ve got this sense of your life being marked.”

One of the on-set highlights for both Tyson and Stuart was the incorporation of John Hope Franklin into the film.

Franklin, who passed away in March 2009, makes a brief cameo during the Raleigh protest scene. During Franklin’s visit, Tyson ordered cases of his autobiography Mirror to America, and Franklin signed copies for the whole crew.

“That meant so much to me,” Tyson said. “He was an important mentor.”

While there, Franklin also See blood on page 6

blood done sign my name

dir. j. stuart real folk productions

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A movie based on a real-life event as riveting and history-rich as the Oxford, N.C. trial of Henry “Dickie” Marrow’s murder can’t be anything but worth watching. Unfortunately, there’s still the matter of craft, and it is in this area that Blood Done Sign My Name often comes up short.

Based on Duke professor Tim Tyson’s autobiographical work of the same name, Blood Done Sign My Name depicts the local climate during Vernon Tyson’s tenure as pastor of Oxford United Methodist Church in the early ’70s. Although framed by the beginning and ultimate termination of Tyson’s pastorship, the film’s core is the civil rights movement’s response to Vietnam vet Marrow’s beating and murder. Local teacher Ben Chavis (Nate Parker) and famed “stoker” Golden Frinks (Afemo Omilami) lead the town’s black citizens in protest, and the two actors also provide the film’s best performances.

Blood’s strength lies in its stirring, emotional plot, which lends itself perfectly to a filmic representation. Other than its scattershot beginning, the movie is paced well and keeps the stakes high throughout. The dominant viewing emotion is the constant desire to see what happens next.

The problems arise in writer-director Jeb Stuart’s adapting of Blood into cinema. The effective movement within and between scenes is sometimes offset by over-the-top montages, particularly a display of the family’s activities that belongs on the cutting room floor of a Lifetime original. Compared with the capable depictions of the trial and a haunting Klan ritual, missteps like the montage seem like the work of a different filmmaker. And the dialogue, which likely works better in book form, is often hackneyed and laughably cliche.

Even considering these flaws, however, this tale deserves an audience in any medium. Hopefully, this movie finds one.

—Kevin Lincoln

Page 6

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February 25, 2010

Senior turns to Duke prof for distinction

by Aziza Sullivan THE CHRONICLE

kathie sun/The Chronicle

Two Small Bodies is Brittany Duck’s senior distinction project. Duck (left) is one of two actors in theater studies professor Neal Bell’s play.

It began with interrogation and an empty child’s bedroom.

Two Small Bodies follows the story of a woman whose children have been discovered missing and an investigating police officer insists on proving her guilt.

The production is Brittany Duck’s senior distinction project, which she began working on in the fall of 2009.

After reading through several plays, she decided on Two Small Bodies for the unique challenge it provided.

“I was really feeling that I wanted something strange, something challenging, something I’d never done before,” Duck said. “[The play] really shows that you’ve got to appreciate what you love.”

The play opens simply enough: Eileen Maloney, a woman separated from her husband, is being interrogated by cool and abrasive Lt. Brann about the disappearance of her children. Although it is not yet evident how Eileen (played

by Duck) feels about her children, nor what has happened to them, it rapidly becomes clear Lt. Brann (sophomore Kyle Glackin) is intent on uncovering her guilt, whether she’s innocent or not. The play focuses largely on their vacillating relationship—sometimes sweet and gentle, other times bitter and hostile—until the poignant climax when the missing childrens’ fates are revealed.

Duck, who also casted and costumed the two-person production, first met with director Marshall Botvinick, Trinity ’06, in October. Botvinick has been overseeing the play’s rehearsals for the last month.

“I think the play is very important in that it explores issues of class, gender and race by virtue of the casting,” he said.

Although there is no overt discussion of race in the script, Botvinick believes the casting—Duck is black, Glackin is white—will invoke some questions of race and power, particularly given Glackin’s overtly authoritative Lt. Brann.

“There’s an interesting dynamic between the two characters,” Glackin said. “It will play on the audience’s own feelings.... It is interesting to see where your initial impressions will lead you.”

Duck said she also chose the play because of its playwright, theater studies professor Neal Bell, who went to a few of the show’s rehearsals. Bell wrote the play in 1976, and it was adapted into a film in 1993. He said he is pleased to see it performed on Duke’s campus.

“I was very happy they wanted to do [my play],” he said.

“I think they’re doing a good job with it, so the play comes through. I’m looking forward to seeing the final version.”

Bell wrote the play after reading the true-story account of a woman whose children disappeared, and the police officer who became consumed with the case.

“The thing that interested me most was, what was this guy obsessed about? Why was he so determined to prove her guilty, given that there was no evidence or motive?,” he said. “A lot of times, when I write a play, it begins with a question I don’t know the answer to. That was the question: why was he so obsessed?”

Two Small Bodies runs tonight through Saturday at 8 p.m. in Brody Theater on East Campus. Admission is free.

blood from page 5 talked to actor Nate Parker, who portrays the activist Ben Chavis. Franklin told Parker how he had debated against Henry Lowe, Parker’s real life character from 2007’s The Great Debaters, becoming so close with him that Franklin was a pallbearer at his funeral.

“That meant the world to Nate,” Stuart said, “to capture a little piece of history like that in a living person. That was the magic of John Hope Franklin.”

Tyson attended the film’s Los Angeles premier on Feb. 10 at the Pan African Film and Arts Festival with his father and sister. “[Blood] is a more human, accurate history,” Tyson said of the final product. “I’m real proud of it.”

Despite “great victories” that have been won since the events of the film, Tyson sees racial issues that still need to be addressed in contemporary North Carolina.

“The way people change the world is messy and complicated,” Tyson said. “It’s not about individual heroism, it’s about how communities respond.”

February 25, 2010

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joanna newsom have one on me drag city

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It feels curious to review Joanna Newsom’s third release, Have One On Me, as an album.

With a running time of more than two hours, it’s longer than any two albums from the similarly verbose, narrativeinclined Decemberists put together. Its 18 tracks, most of which are at least six minutes in length, generally inhabit the same sonic space: gentle, lilting avantgarde folk with arrangements heavy on both harp and on Newsom’s inimitable warble. As a result, it is difficult to comprehensively listen to, much less evaluate, Have One On Me. In some sense, this record comes as another step in a logical progression for Newsom, who followed up debut The MilkEyed Mender with Ys, a dense, ambitious col-

xiu xiu from page 3 But that Nightlight show was really fun. I had never done a solely experimental show before. I listen to a lot of music like that, there’s elements of it in certain Xiu Xiu songs.

Speaking of solo shows, can we talk about your show at the Duke Coffeehouse last spring? That was an odd night.

That was the first solo show I had played in about five years. I had no idea what I was doing. A friend of mine invited a bunch of friends of hers who weren’t really music fans—like “bros” from around town, who were nice enough people but they didn’t f—ing have any idea. They didn’t know who Xiu Xiu was or anything. So I played horrible, for one, and then somebody f—ing passed out.

I think the funniest thing about that was that the Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle was there.

Yeah, that was another thing that made it suck for me— I’m a really big Mountain Goats fan. John and I have since become friends, to hang out socially, but I barely knew him at the time and also was a big fan. So he shows up, and I’m like oh, f—, I’m going to suck tonight. And I know I’m going to suck that night, and I did suck that night, and then somebody f—ing passes out during the show.

I hear you’re working on Blue Water, White Death, your new project with Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg?

We did it already, we did it at [the Paper Chase’s] John Congleton’s studio in Dallas. It was cool. I had worked on other people’s records in the capacity of engineer, but in many years had not had the chance to be on the other side of that, to work with a great engineer. And of course John Congleton is a world-class, incredibly talented engineer.

Do you have any last messages to say to Durham?

I’m sorry for all the mean things I said, for talking about it on my blog all the time.

If North Carolina passes gay marriage, do we have your approval forever?

Forever. California hasn’t. So if that happens I’ll reassess everything I’ve ever thought about this place.

Page 7

lection of ten-plus minute compositions.

But where Ys was rewarding upon a single listen, Have One On Me gradually blunts your attention with both repetition and excess. Ostensibly a triple album, there’s little here to suggest a good reason for this structure. All three discs are thematically similar, and the songs tend to bleed into each other such that it becomes difficult to discern where one disc ends and the next begins.

In spite of the bloat of Have One On Me, Newsom is still a storyteller almost without peer in the folk world. The wordplay and imagery honed on her first two records are expanded here, and the results, as on introspective travelogue “Good Intentions Paving Co.” and the tragically serene “Does Not Suffice,” are occasionally transcendent. You get the sense that a more discerning edit may have made a classic out of Have One On Me, but the relentless excess dooms it to unevenness.

—Ross Green

Page 8

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February 25, 2010

Lines of Attack: Conflicts in Caricature February 4 – May 16, 2010

IMAGE: Kevin KAL Kallaugher, Florida, 2000. Pen, brush and india ink, 16 x 20 inches, Appeared in The Economist, July 17, 2004.

The exhibition, its catalogue and related programming are generously supported by Duke University’s Provost’s Common Fund, the Sunny Rosenberg Endowment Fund and the Sandra A. Urie and Katherine Urie Thorpe Endowment Fund. Additional in-kind support was provided by the Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies and The Chronicle.

www.nasher.duke.edu | 919-684-5135

Sports

>> SWIMMING & DIVING

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THURSDAY February 25, 2010

The men’s ACC swimming championships began yesterday and run until Saturday Alex Fanaroff continues the numbers game to analyze Duke Basketball

www.dukechroniclesports.com

men’s basketball

DUKE vs TULSA

THURSDAY • 7 p.m. • ESPN2

Golden Hurricane visit in unusual nonconference contest

by Jacob Levitt THE CHRONICLe

melissa yeo/The Chronicle

Senior Brian Zoubek’s second-to-last home game will come, oddly enough, against Tulsa, even though ACC play is close to concluding.

After an intense game against a talented Virginia Tech team, and with a daunting finish to the ACC schedule that features rivalry games at Maryland and against North Carolina at home, less disciplined teams might be inclined to overlook a nonconference game against Tulsa (19-8), which has lost three straight and four of its last five.

No. 5 Duke (23-4) is determined not to let that happen.

“These guys are a veteran team, so they understand the importance of each and every game and we feel we still have a lot to play for,” associate head coach Chris Collins said. “We’re still playing for our seed in the NCAA tournament. For us, every time we play is a chance to get better and to continue to build our resumé.”

Duke knows not to overlook the Golden Hurricane, in spite of the the squad’s recent strug-

gles, because Tulsa remains a talented team,. Led by a formidable inside-outside combination in senior point guard Ben Uzoh and senior center Jerome Jordan, the team was predicted by some as the best team in Conference USA during the preseason.

In order to combat the inside presence of the 7-foot Jordan, the Blue Devils will likely turn once again to the resurgent Brian Zoubek, who has averaged 9.7 points and 12.7 rebounds— half on the offensive end—since joining the starting lineup three games ago. “[Starting] has allowed me to get into the flow of the game a little sooner and it gives me a little more confidence,” Zoubek said.

Like Zoubek, senior forward Lance Thomas has also been integral to this year’s team because of his defense and leadership rather than dazzling offensive numbers. Thomas did not score See m. bball on page 8

Moore elected sports editor of Volume 106 Sophomore Andy Moore was elected sports editor of The Chronicle’s 106th volume at a meeting of the sports staff Wednesday night.

Moore will begin a one-year term this May and lead a staff of approximately 35 writers and editors. He replaces senior Gabriel Starosta in the position.

Moore, a native of Mount Olive, N.C., will add a local perspective to one of The Chronicle’s top jobs. He is currently an associate sports editor who has covered men’s basketball and football this year, and also served as one of two sports recruitment chairs in the Fall.

“This wasn’t always what I imagined for myself, but I’m extremely excited about the opportunity to lead such a fine group of people and journalists,” Moore said. “The Chronicle has given me so many great memories already at Duke, and I’m really looking forward to the next year.”

In his speech Wednesday night, Moore focused on the sports section’s potential for online growth. He said The Chronicle’s Sports Blog and its presence on websites like Twitter and Facebook were positive developments, but added that the multimedia and online aspects

of the newspaper could only improve with more of a commitment from the entire staff.

Moore’s experience with online and multimedia journalism is varied. He and fellow sophomore Taylor Doherty combined to write a series on athletes and their use of social media, and he has also written about his participation in the Krispy Kreme Challenge.

“The future of newspapers is online, and we would be naive not to recognize that,” Moore said. “Every member of this organization needs to know that.”

Moore also stressed the need to run more feature stories, especially those about non-revenue sports.

Men’s basketball and football will continue to be the two sports that receive the most attention, Moore said.

But he added that less marquee sports like soccer and tennis also deserve indepth coverage.

Moore is a 2008 graduate of Southern Wayne High School in Dudley, N.C., and is pursuing a degree in political science.

He is also pursuing a minor in English and the Markets and Management certificate.

Moore expects to graduate in May 2012.

—from staff reports

maya robinson/The Chronicle

Sophomore Andy Moore will take over as sports editor of Volume 106 of The Chronicle this May.

8 | THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2010 the chronicle

WOMEN’S TENNIS

Blue Devils kick off ACC schedule versus N.C. State The home courts of Ambler Tennis Stadium and Sheffield Indoor Tennis Stadium have been kind to Duke this year, and the No. 6 Blue Devils hope to continue that trend when they take on ACC rival N.C. State Thursday at 4 p.m.

Duke is a perfect 7-0 at home this season, yet the location of this afternoon’s match will depend on the weather—Duke (9-1) defeated Michigan outdoors last Saturday on a clear, warm day, but Thursday’s weather report calls for tem-

peratures below 40 degrees.

The matchup with the Wolfpack marks the Blue Devils’ first foray into conference play, although Duke won’t stay within the ACC for long. After playing N.C. State (3-2) today, the Blue Devils won’t face another conference team until March 27, when they host Maryland. In between, Duke has three road and one home match scheduled against nonconference opponents.

Thursday’s dual match could

represent a milestone for head coach Jamie Ashworth, who is seeking his 300th victory at the helm of the Duke program. Ashworth is 299-69 in 13 seasons in Durham.

Last weekend, Duke bounced back from a loss to current No. 2 North Carolina with wins over Furman and No. 6 Michigan. Against the Wolverines, junior Ellah Nze earned a tough victory at No. 1 singles, while senior Elizabeth Plotkin improved to 10-0 on the year.

—from staff reports

nate glencer/The Chronicle

No. 47 Elizabeth Plotkin could move her record to 11-0 with a win against N.C. State.

CLASSIFIEDS Announcements Holton Prize in Education

Three cash prizes of $500 will be awarded for outstanding, innovative, or investigative research in education related fields. Application deadline is April 23, 2010.

Open to Duke undergraduates.

For more information, www. duke.edu/web/education/scholarships/holtonprize.html

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Sunday against the Hokies, but he did contribute six boards and play lockdown defense in the paint.

Fortunately, Thomas and Zoubek’s lack of offensive production has not been a problem lately. Duke has been able to rely on its big three of Jon Scheyer, Nolan Smith and Kyle Singler, who combined for 63 of Duke’s 67 points against Virginia Tech Sunday and form the highest scoring threesome in the NCAA at 53.7 points per game. Such reliance on the team’s three perimeter players, while potentially risky, doesn’t bother Zoubek.

“People are going to have to step up if they [Scheyer, Smith, and Singler] aren’t having a great game, but I think people will do that,” Zoubek said.

“I don’t have any problem with my role and I know Lance and some other guys don’t, so if I don’t score a lot it’s not a problem with me because I know I have an impact on the game.”

Even in between games, Zoubek and Thomas have made significant contributions to the team. “[The younger players] have picked up some things in terms of how we work and how we play,” Zoubek said. “Me and LT didn’t have players like us to look up to or to learn from as freshmen and I think that’s something really valuable they should take advantage of while they have it.”

On the stat sheet it can be easy to overlook the contributions of players like Thomas and Zoubek, but on senior night the Blue Devils hope the Crazies take the opportunity to appreciate their play and the legacy they leave.

D E L L E CANC

melissa yeo/The Chronicle

Senior Jon Scheyer’s performances this season have put him in the discussion for the ACC and National Player of the Year awards.

the chronicle

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2010 | 9

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10 | THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2010 the chronicle commentaries

The risks and rewards of Kunshan Last week, Shanghai Jiao Given the technical naTong University—Duke’s part- ture of cyberattacks, however, ner in its current plans to ex- it would be rash to point finpand into China—was linked gers at SJTU officials or canto a series of cyberattacks di- cel the University’s expanrected at Google and several sion into China right now. other compaCyberattacks nies in the Unitcan be made to editorial ed States. At this appear to origpoint in time, it is still unclear inate from any source, and what direct role SJTU or its Duke’s own servers could be students played in the attack. used to launch illegal activity Undoubtedly, this news is on the Internet. cause for concern and heightThese concerns aside, ened vigilance for University the cyberattacks highlight administrators, and we are the uncertainty implicit in glad that President Richard partnering with a university Brodhead and Provost Peter in a politically volatile counLange are keeping a close try, and they underscore the tab on the situation. Illegal or need for constant, rational unethical behavior at SJTU vigilance on the part of Duke or Duke’s future campus in administrators.

China could have major acaOver the next few years, demic and reputational re- Duke will oversee construcpercussions for Duke. tion of a 200-acre campus in

“

onlinecomment

If a student is ready to accept the commitment of blue tenting, why would they not extend that commitment weeks earlier if the rules are easier during black tenting?

”

—“TheWizardOfWestchester” commenting on the column “ Forget the camel, and forget white tenting .”

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the city of Kunshan, just outside of Shanghai. In partnership with SJTU, the University will offer M.B.A. classes, Ph.D. courses and several programs for undergraduates.

This initiative marks the boldest step for any American university expanding into China, and as we noted in an editorial last month, it opens up the potential for rich educational and cultural exchange between the University, American higher education as a whole and China.

In light of China’s rapidly growing economy and influence on the global stage, the importance of this fact cannot be understated.

But because the University’s expansion is unprecedented, it is shrouded by an uncertainty that is only

heightened by the Chinese government’s opposition to free speech and censorship of the Internet.

So far, Duke’s administration has demonstrated ample awareness of the risks involved in partnering with SJTU, and it has taken appropriate steps to liaise with U.S. State Department officials and consult with Chinese experts to keep abreast of pressing issues as they arise.

It is difficult to plan for the unexpected, and administrators are doing the best they can by staying informed and thinking ahead. Moving forward, incoming senior advisor for international strategy Gregory Jones should play a large role in this process.

First and foremost, the University is partnering with

Kunshan to enhance the quality of a Duke education and foster cultural exchange. In doing so, Duke officials must ensure that the University upholds its academic values and does not enable or contribute to the suppression of free speech and free ideas.

But the University cannot build bridges by building up walls along the way. Mandating draconian regulations and spewing harsh rhetoric will only increase tensions between Duke and its Chinese partners and minimize the opportunity for cross-cultural understanding.

Risk management is of utmost importance for the success of Duke’s expansion into China. But taken too far, it will undermine the very purpose of educational exchange.

Bring Great books to Duke

P

erhaps Duke expects too much of its freshmen.

By that, I mean that freshmen are often more intellectually immature than their tremendous course freedom would suggest. It’s no secret that many have no idea what they want to study, even into their sophomore or junior years. Amid this confusion, I wonder whether the vikram srinivasan uncommon lack of options for structure outside a conviction defined major or certificate track is a deficiency in Duke’s liberal arts education.

As a remedy, Duke ought to consider the creation of an optional Great Books immersion program for freshmen.

The idea occurred to me when I read a piece by Yale University senior Matt Shaffer for the Manhattan Institute’s higher education Web site. Shaffer expresses his regret and that of many of his peers over not participating in Yale’s “Directed Studies” program, their year-long Great Books curriculum.

DS students are more eager learners, he says, and begin their college education on a surer footing than their peers.

Every Fall semester, 125 Yale freshmen in the program embark on three year-long courses in the Western canon of literature, philosophy and historical and political thought. According to the program Web site, DS fulfills a number of distributional requirements, in addition to providing a “strong foundation for all majors in Yale College.”

Reflecting on Shaffer’s column, I felt like it spoke directly to the Duke undergraduate experience, too.

For instance, my own course selection early in college was often random and haphazard, conducted without a clear sense of specific educational goals. I often wonder whether I might have made more of my academic career at Duke had I had a clear track laid out for me.

I know many other students feel the same way.

I talked to Robert Thompson, former dean of Trinity College, about Duke’s academic aspirations and whether the University ever considered a Great Books program. Thompson stressed the goals of “breadth and depth” in American higher education as well as the diversity of approaches toward satisfying those ideals. Duke’s particular balance, he said, was struck “commensurate with [our goals as] a research university, with an emphasis on the process of research and discovery,” as opposed to a directed readings track.

Now I firmly believe academic institutions should establish a clear vision for their curricular priorities.

For the most part, I have no qualms with T-Reqs, even if I sometimes doubt the efficacy of their implementation. Yet, in the great unending debate over whether higher education curricula should favor freedom or structure in preparing students to enter the world, I detect a false choice.

Here especially, offering students the option— not the requirement—of a Great Books-type immersion in their first year would not only enable them to satisfy numerous University requirements, but do so in a meaningful way that would enrich the remainder of their studies and prepare them to make more deliberate and thoughtful academic choices.

Indeed, in a liberal arts education, course order matters. Though it is true that many of the themes engaged by the primary works are timeless, they are not ahistorical. They are best studied as part of a conversation, and the classes I have learned the most in are those which have taught intellectual history as such.

Particularly for humanities students, it becomes clear over the course of their study how important the history of ideas is to a meaningful understanding of their coursework. The lack of a broad-based exposure to major thinkers in many of these fields can be frustrating for students as they enter higher level courses and realize they aren’t quite as familiar with the foundations as they thought they were.

My sense is that this originates from the lack of any required introductory courses for various humanities majors. Students don’t know what courses they should take, and so take whatever they feel like.

This has clear disadvantages. In my own experience, I never actually read Aristotle at length until the first semester of my senior year despite taking multiple philosophy and political theory courses. This seems to me an unequivocal absurdity.

Some might say students should know better and seek to remedy the deficiencies in their curricular exposure. But the problem with not knowing what you’re missing is that you often don’t realize you’re missing anything at all.

To be sure, Directed Studies at Yale is not perfect.

Students sometimes complain about being overburdened with readings. Nonetheless, many of these same students remain effusive—and keep coming back. One I interviewed, Yale freshman James Benkowski, said that students “most definitely benefit.”

I suspect Duke students would benefit as well. A Duke DS track need not start off large—it could begin as a pilot program, with some 30 or 60 students— like a FOCUS plus, of sorts.

Sure, Great Books can wait—they have been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. But can students?

Vikram Srinivasan is a Trinity senior. His column runs every other Thursday.

the chronicle

Awareness overload

I

may finally have achieved a state of complete and total awareness.

I’m not talking about any kind of spiritual discovery. I have not attained Nirvana and I can’t tell you what the meaning of life is (I’m saving that for my final column).

What I mean to say is that through the efforts of various individuals and groups to bring to my attention all the problems facing the planet, I believe I’m approaching a state of being aware of every single one of them.

Let me demonstrate.

I’ve been made aware of the need for mosquito nets in Africa, the unethical treatment of farm workers in dan flavin Central America and the bleaching in real life of the planet’s coral reefs. I’m aware of last month’s earthquake in Haiti and its terrible aftermath, the difficulties faced by transgender individuals living in India and the problems beach re-nourishment has caused nesting sea turtles. I’m aware of ongoing genocide in the Sudan. I’m aware that millions of people don’t have access to clean water. I’m aware of the problems caused by overmedicating our livestock with antibiotics. I’m aware of the dangers associated with binge drinking. I’m aware of heart disease, lung disease, MS, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, autism and just about every type of cancer and STD on the planet. Oh, and I almost forgot. I’m aware that stray dogs and cats are being used as shark bait on the French-controlled island of Réunion (thank you Facebook).

Even now, as I sit writing this from my tent in K-ville, the Refugee Awareness Tent across the sidewalk is alerting me that some people don’t get grace when it snows. “Imagine tenting without the games,” the banner declares. It doesn’t take much of an imagination to realize that it would be very not cool.

All of this awareness talk makes me think that we must be the most aware generation of all time. Previous generations could not have outdone us in raising awareness of all the pain, suffering, injustice, violence, illness and cruelty that the impoverished, malnourished, homeless, disenfranchised and less-fortunate-than-us people, places and animals of the world have to deal with. It’s simply not possible.

But has it done any good?

In your mind, I want you to make a list of all the issues that have been brought to your attention by groups seeking to raise awareness.

If you’ve been on this campus for any length of time at all, I guarantee your list is at least as long as mine was.

Now, answer this. How many issues on your list have you addressed with any sort of action, beyond something simple like wearing a specific color to class on a certain day?

If you are like me, that question shrinks your list quite a bit. Like, to almost nothing.

This brings us to the awareness problem.

For all the time and effort spent on raising awareness, are we really doing anything worthwhile, or are we just adding activities to our resumes and making sure our peers see us in a certain way?

I can post YouTube clips about child soldiers in Darfur and wear T-shirts declaring that now is the time to end poverty until the cows come home. Either of these actions might reveal a lot about what kind of person I am, but they will do nothing to solve the problems I profess to care about.

The importance of awareness has been inflated. Somehow, we’ve confused ourselves into thinking that if we can only make enough people aware of a problem, it will solve itself. Perhaps someone will get tired of listening to our complaining and decide to take care of things for us. Who knows? As long as enough people know that the problem exists, that is all that matters.

The truth is that making the world a better place takes actions, not words or tents or blogs or T-shirts. Yes, awareness does serve a purpose (people have to find out about things somehow), but awareness by itself accomplishes nothing.

I participated in an exercise once as part of a biology course I was taking. The exercise involved explaining how you would establish a hypothetical area of protected habitat.

Almost every student in the class included in their plan a substantial amount of money to be used for education to raise awareness of endangered animals in the surrounding areas. Although this seemed to us like a perfectly logical strategy, our professor’s biggest critique was centered on it. He wanted to know why we hadn’t thought about using the money to lobby and generate political will, or why we hadn’t considered hiring more people to enforce regulations, and a number of other things no one had even considered.

So often, raising awareness seems to be the default answer when it comes to the question of how to react to the big problems around us.

Is it really the best answer, or is it just the easiest one?

Daniel Flavin is a Trinity senior. His column runs every other Thursday.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2010 | 11

commentaries

I

Scratch that itch

was sitting in one of my four African and African-American Studies classes sometime last week when I had an epiphany: Race issues are similar to itches that you can never seem to reach.

Consider the experiences of the only black kid in a Panhellenic or Interfraternity Council organization or metty fishea the fact that black i’m just saying men are incarcerated at 6.6 times the rate of white men. You feel these persistently at first, then after a while they begin to fade like the itch that you’ve gotten used to. Discomfort becomes denial. Eventually, you just stop feeling or noticing them, and as time passes they go by without being acknowledged.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy studying race—after all, I am a AAAS minor and these are the classes where I engage in discussion the most. At the very least, I find race-related issues stimulating. At the most, I see them entwined into almost every aspect of my day-to-day life.

However, I’ve found it increasingly difficult to gain sustenance from what I learn in my classes with regard to race. It’s as if I disagree with almost everything I’m taught, from the theories in my readings to the lectures by my professors.

Not to mention some of the aimless comments made by my classmates, which are so saturated with attempts at political correctness that they come off more as testaments to their liberalism rather than substantial contributions to discussion. Anytime your comment begins with “I have a friend who’s black/Asian/Mexican/fill in minority here,” please do us all a favor and keep it to yourself.

But I’m not as concerned with the average Duke student’s position on civil rights as I am with my discomfort stemming from the nature of discourse on race in the United States. I’ve been able to pinpoint the very way that I think and understand things as a major cause of the problem.

I am a political science major: My brain works in a very structured manner. I see a problem, typically a societal one, and my main objective is to solve it. And if I can’t solve it, at the very least I need to feel like there is some sort of momentum geared toward improving it.

This perspective is different from the one that many academics have adopted with regard to race. Black, white, young and old civil rights activists all seem to be headed down a road toward nothing.

Granted, the resilience of these same activists and their predecessors has won major milestones in American society that are still working to mold the historically racist Ethos into a more tolerant one (thank you Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks for being the poster boy and girl of a movement that succeeded in making people equal under the law).

However, in this post-Civil Rights era there has undoubtedly been a shift away from goal-oriented and progressive efforts, to those geared toward minimizing racial dissonance rather than using it to catalyze revolutionary change.

Perhaps we should be focused on more than how to pass legislation meant to make blacks more equal to whites. This struggle for marginal progress is parallel to an asymptotic function where blacks achieve less equality as time passes, ultimately approaching a point where all civil rights activists around the United States can sit back, kick their feet up and declare: Yes. We’re done.

What am I suggesting? For one, I think it’s supremely important for all of us to ask ourselves what the goal of the race struggle is in America.

Is it to achieve equal representation in Congress?

Can we look back on the election of Barack Obama and say that blacks are more equal to whites than they were if we hadn’t elected a black president?

If so, this same standard of measurement about the progress of race relations can imply the contrary to what Obama’s election suggests when one considers the low incidence of blacks in “white” organizations on college campuses. The fact that Obama is the exception and not the rule is reiterated by the reality that our self-enforced in-group bias is accomplishing a variation of what Jim Crow once instated. Call it what you will, but the net effect is the same.

Measuring the state of race relations, in the U.S. or here at Duke, by pointing to the first black president or to the black kid in the “white frat” undermines the progress that has been made and jeopardizes the integrity of civil rights efforts to come. We must question how we can create a society that is not inclined towards perpetuating racially segregated proms at Montgomery County High School in Georgia half a century after Brown v. Board.

The system is flawed, and attempting to seek the end goals of the Civil Rights Movement within this framework built on racism is by virtue misled and largely defective in the long run. It’s time to put down whatever we were doing, and focus our attention on finding that itch and scratching it.

We can’t afford for it to be ignored any longer.

Metty Fisseha is a Trinity junior. Her column runs every other Thursday.

12 | THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2010 the chronicle

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